Wednesday, March 21, 2012

After all these years, I don't know if I ever said what I do in my real life, other than my passion---my work with adults who have disabilities in my collaborative craft studio.

I work as a freelance editor and I proofread legal documents made by court reporters for law firms. You know, depositions, interrogatories, etc. I don't really write about it, simply because it's confidential work, and there's no point to discussing it .

I'm not perfect, and I certainly don't go around correcting the mistakes made by others in blogland, but some things really chap my heinie.

One of those things is the inane headlines written under the guise of "news" on AOL. I've written about it before---my annoyance with the overuse of the word "Icon". Who in the heck edits this stuff?

I've collected a few AOL headlines lately that I want to bitch about/share....Not so much about structure, but about content and---ok, well you'll get it:How Celebs Stop Sibling Rivalry:

Number one, who the eff cares? Does the fact that they're celebs make them better parents? I imagine them ordering the nannies take the brats to separate wings of the mansion. It's like trusting Tom Cruise to be the expert on mental health (you GO Brooke Shields!), or trusting Spicoli to handle our country's foreign affairs.

Kim Kardashian Spotted in Skintight Dress:

This is news? I thought maybe if she wore a tent designed by Omar it might actually be noteworthy.

Ron Paul: I Subscribed Birth Control:

Uh, as a doctor, he might have PRESCRIBED birth control to his patients, you dorts. You make it sound like he received multi-themed condoms from the "dick of the month club". And IF he prescribed birth control to patients, whose biz is it? Not ours!

How Man Monitored Wife's Sex Life:

Well duh. You'd think he'd notice every time they bumped uglies. Was he unconscious?

I made a vow not to use the word "stupid" in my blog posts a few years ago.

Saturday, March 03, 2012

I really hate the term "thinking outside the box". It's so freaking cliche. But I don't know what other phrase to use.

As you guys know, my stress levels have been high for months. Mostly it surrounds Big Kid and his care, as well as his appeal for his original claim for Social Security (will get into that after we hear the ruling). He's pretty much recovered as much as he's going to recover from his bout with the swine flu. Now it's just aftermath and trying to gather the pieces together to help him have a life that is meaningful for him.

The latest? He still has good insurance, but now that he has medicaid in addition, he can't see his neuropsych (of 5 years) any more. In fact, there isn't a psych (neuro or otherwise) doc in 100 miles that is taking medicaid patients. We can't just ignore the medicaid part of it and pay the co-pay (or just pay cash), because there is a law in our state that makes it a felony for providers to accept this. The county, which accepts medicaid through their mental health program, has psychiatrists, but not neuropsychs (in fact, they referred us back to his original neuropsych, believe it or not), who deal with brain injuries as well as mental illnesses. :::sigh::: Right now it seems we're up shit creek without a paddle.

So with the medical crap and the constant drama (he and/or Kitty call me 5 times a day to deal with all kinds of "crises"), I had to think of something to get me out of this rut somehow. This CAN'T be what the rest of my life is going to be like!

I love to cook. It's therapeutic for me. I'm not a natural cooking genius, like Rootietoot, nor am I a culinary marvel like Warner. I just like to cook, and I'm really good at a few things.

Last summer, when Mom and Poppa G were visiting, we were able to have a family party and I got to cook for everybody. We had gotten around to talking about the senior centers (they belong to several---LOL) and the food programs available. While balanced and nourishing, the meals served are usually bland and tasteless. I guess when you get older, you lose a lot of taste buds, so there needs to be some extra zing! to make food flavorful (at least according to my mom).

Anyhoo, early in January, in the midst of my funk, I was trying to think of a project or activity we could do as a family. Something out of the ordinary---that didn't involve doctors, or lawyers, or advocates, or angry feelings.

Well, we did it! Last week we cooked and served a Chinese food feast at our local senior center as a family! It was sort of a dim-summy kind of meal---sesame chicken wings, pearl balls, crab rangoon, cantonese egg rolls and more.

All the family got in on the prep work----rolling egg rolls and pearl balls, etc. All we had to do was fry, steam and bake at the site. The guys and Kitty created festive baskets for the tables, full of condiments and fortune cookies.

Everything went smashingly well. Except that Big Kid started to have a panic attack in the middle (even friendly crowds frighten him after a point) and Kitty had to zip him home. That was ok---there were plenty of volunteer servers on hand.

They had reservations for about 75, but we cooked enough for 100. Good thing we did---all that was left was a couple of egg rolls and wings!

Little Guy had a blast, and went around volunteering for us to do this again. LOL Next time I think we're going to do lasagna.

So that was my idea of getting us out of a rut. Of course, I had to sleep for two days afterwards! Snarf.